A significant architectural advantage of steel over wood is the ability to cold form arches and curves as chord members, further increasing the design versatility as well as engineering stiffness. The engineering benefits of doing so are lighter weight and better resistance to rot, insect damage, and splitting. In fact, any wood truss design can now be competitively manufactured using steel elements. The top chords typically bear loads directly, and the resulting tension and compression load distribution through the struts to the bottom chord accounts for the greater overall load bearing capabilityĪ commonly observed use of the triangular steel truss system is for electric grid power line distribution towers, for example. Design And Use Of Engineered Steel Trussesīased on engineered wood truss designs, steel trusses also follow the common triangular chord and strut configuration as demonstrate All have now become cost effective, reliable, and safe alternatives to more traditional structural framing materials. Finally, the cold rolled process for producing steel truss members now enables low cost production of steel floor trusses, steel roof trusses, entire steel truss buildings, and the elements used in the design of steel truss bridges. Electric arc furnaces enabled efficient steel recycling processes, further decreasing production costs. With the development of the Bessemer process in 1858 the cost of manufacturing steel began to drop, and with the Linz-Donawitz process 100 years later steel began to seriously compete with wood as a structural framing element. However, it became tragically apparent that structural iron quality control and design methods did not have the necessary reliability and cost factors required for widespread use.
Attempts were made in the 17th and 18th centuries to use iron as reinforcing and structural members, especially in bridge design for railroads and other heavy load applications. As a relatively new building material, steel has become especially useful when incorporated into engineered steel trusses and steel plate connected timber trusses.